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While reporting that the opiate crisis has entered the presidential campaign dialogue is noteworthy, it is disappointing that such a complex issue is broken down to a binary of incarceration vs. treatment.

Hillary Clinton and others must not take an overly simplistic and myopic position that the opiate epidemic requires a choice between a criminal justice response and a public health response. An effective response must include not only law enforcement and drug treatment elements, but must be a holistic strategy which incorporates many critical elements including mental health, domestic and intimate partner violence (DV/IPV) prevention, neighborhood stabilization and revitalization, corrections, and most importantly the establishment of police legitimacy and trust within our communities.

An effective community-based strategy requires collaborative partnerships that break down silos between divergent stakeholders and can yield dramatic results at the local level. All too often family counselors aren’t talking with mental health providers, police with treatment providers, and DV/IPV professionals with probation officers. This must be remedied. Data-driven efforts that rely on information sharing and the willingness of otherwise disparate groups/individuals to work together toward a common goal have proved successful in improving quality of life and reducing substance-abuse related crime. Addicts must be given the tools to begin and succeed in recovery, but must also be held accountable within the criminal justice system if they continue to do harm to their community.

Law enforcement partners at the local, state, and federal level aggressively attacking both intra- and interstate drug distribution systems can greatly impact the supply side, while wrap-around social service support and treatment programs can impact the demand side by dismantling the local social networks and infrastructure required to spread product through our neighborhoods. While all these moving parts must mesh seamlessly in practice, communities must also work with research partners in academia to establish metrics for success and to validate outcomes.

Clearly there are no simple solutions to a very complex problem and the media does the public a great disservice by repeating national level politicians’ oversimplified and false narrative: that we as a society must choose between incarceration and drug treatment.

While we cannot arrest our way out of the opiate epidemic, we likewise cannot treat ourselves out of it either. Broad, well-thought out and validated community-based strategies already exist. Presidential candidates simply need the wherewithal to seek them out, the willingness to take the time to express them, and the political courage to adopt them.